Dark Justice
by Ray Venn Hakubi
Summary: An Abyssal Salamander creates a Pawn, and trains her. When he sends her to the mortal plane for her final test, what will become of her..?


Dark Justice

_A Forgotten Realms story by Ray Hakubi. I do not own Forgotten Realms, the Abyss, or any other planar real estate. Used without permission, owned by Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro. Cinder, the Kusao name, and the Mantis Claws technique are property (probably) of RCX, author of the Wheel of Fire fanfiction series (Ranma 1/2)_

In the various planes of existence, there lie many, both good and evil. Some follow the gods of justice and duty, of health and beauty. Others follow the gods of power and self-service, of darkness and shadow.

Some follow gods whose servants are their natural enemies. Others deny the existence of gods other than their own. Some forge their own destiny, and some are tossed around like leaves in the whirlwind of fate.

Some do both.

In the planes, there is one considered most evil and vile. It is the Abyss, home of the demons, chaotic incarnations of pure evil. It is here that our story begins. The abyss is ruled by powerful demons, which often employ servants and retainers to do their dirty work. One of the more powerful of these servants is Cinder, a demonic Salamander of no small skill. Hundreds of years ago, a mortal who had summoned Cinder, betrayed him, costing the Salamander his arms, left eye, and most of his tail. Since then, he has had all replaced by Golemnic augmentations, choosing a bipedal form that gave more freedom of movement than his serpentine tail would allow.

Thirty-five years ago, he was summoned again, but for a different purpose. For some time, he had been working through whispers and subtle hints to draw a mortal woman to him, for one sole purpose: The creation of an heir to act for him as he acted for his Lord. One who's body was whole, who could spend extended periods of time on the Prime and other planes. Finally, the mortal had summoned him for the purpose he desired, believing it to be her own idea, and her own family who would benefit from the demon's bloodline. She was wrong. Within scant years, her family was ruined, forced to escape to a small village near the Archwood, where she died in poverty. Her son, who had shown no traits of his father, married an Elf maiden, taking her family name of Kusao. After a few short years, their child was born. That was two weeks ago. Now, he prepares to venture to the Prime once more.

Cinder stood in his small cell, lizardlike eye closed in thought. His red scales were flaking off, filling the flame-adorned room with fine dust. Momentarily, he ruminated on his own nature and failings. Not even a Salamander can withstand the fires of Kossuth, and he rued the day he accepted the mortal's invitation to stand for her as claimant to his Guardianship. His limbs clicked and whirred as he reached over and took up the air mask that allowed him to survive outside the oxygen-rich air of his chambers, buckling it over his lower face, ignoring the pain as it scraped half-dead scar tissue from his jaw and lips. Next came the air canisters, worn around his waist and coated in fire-retardant magic. Also on the belt was the fuel for the flamethrowers built into his Golemnic limbs, and he threaded the hoses through the loops in his armpits, screwing them into the appropriate holes. Satisfied that he was ready, Cinder took up his white robe, pulling it over his head and settling it on his shoulders, lifting the hood so that it obscured his face. When it was settled, he opened his Golemnic eye, the red glow illuminating none of his face, but giving him a menacing air. Finally, he used a rope to belt the robe about his middle, below the air canisters and above where his Golemnic legs met the sides of the stump of his tail. Now, it would be hard to see him as anything but a large humanoid, hunched with muscled power. Prepared, Cinder turned to the nearest fire, staring into it with both eyes, Golemnic and living. There, an image formed, a flickering flame within a flickering flame. Within the flame was a burning house, a dead man falling at the hands of a mob, a frantic elven mother defending herself and her babe with a longsword. Behind her, the hearth burned merrily.

'Perfect.' Cinder smiled to himself, as much as a salamander can smile, and stepped into the flames. They did not burn him, for he was fire incarnate. Instead, the hearth in the home erupted into violent life as he manifested within it. The mortals turned alike, betrayed elf and human, to see the demon stride forth, raising one hand. With a thought, Cinder flicked cruel flames forth from his wrist, incinerating the woman who had mothered his grandson with the humans who had sought her death, and setting the house alight. 'also perfect.' The thought crossed the Salamander's mind, as he turned his back on the survivors and scooped the swaddled babe up into the crook of one robed arm. Burning more fuel, he set the house alight, revelling in the flames with savage glee. When they burned hot enough, he turned to the frantic survivors or his initial assault, and laughed.

"This child you sought to slay will destroy you all." He chuckled into his mask, which distorted his voice to an echoing tone befitting a demon, the loud click-suck of it's mechanism a terrifying, ominous sound in itself. Then, the fires froze, and moved across the air to surround him, bathing him and the child in flame. The child started bawling in pain, but Cinder paid it no mind as they vanished from the plane, stepping back into his abyssal abode. On the prime, the flames held his shape for agonising seconds, before exploding back to their proper places, detonating the house and extinguishing life within a hundred paces.

* * *

_ Six hundred years later Faerunian, eighty years Abyssal._

Minori Kusao ducked under the flying spear and rolled, landing in a crouch just outside the room with the spear-trap. She was sweating slightly from her exertion, though the oppressive heat might also have something to do with that.

'Master Cinder's tests are getting harder…' she thought to herself, grinning. 'good, they were starting to get boring…' She peered into the next room through narrowed eyes, crimson orbs missing nothing. The test seemed simply enough – swinging iron balls hung from the high ceiling, and near-invisible beams of sonic energy shot out from the walls at intervals, turning off and on seemingly randomly. Standing there for a good two minutes, Minori watched them, and determined that there was a pattern. 'so, he wants to test my timing now…' she grinned, and waited for the right moment, before sprinting safely across the room. The next chamber appeared to be the end of the obstacle course, for there was no door at the far end, and a plinth stood on a raised platform in the centre of the room. There were no traps visible, and that made Minori suspicious. Surely it wouldn't be this easy, to just walk in and take the pearl that must be hidden under the shroud on the plinth. Still, she knew that standing in the doorway any longer would only count against her, and she walked into the room, senses straining and alert. She reached the plinth, unharmed and unmolested. As she reached out to remove the cloth, she felt a telltale whisper of air at the back of her neck, and threw herself sideways, turning a handspring off the stone floor and landing in a crouched ready position, one arm extended in front to knock away attacks, the other held in front of her chest to protect her torso and attack with.

Her attacker was unidentifiable, a single tentacle with a sharp, spear-like tip impaled into the stones where she had been standing. It extended around in a loop from the back of the plinth, suggesting that whatever it belonged to was under the cloth. More, similar, limbs revealed themselves, their sneak attack foiled, and started writhing as though daring her to come closer. Well, she couldn't refuse an invitation, could she? Minori leapt into action, literally, pushing off with one foot and grabbing a tentacle, swinging around and over it to land on another, pushing off from that one, then the next, and the next, in an aerial performance that would seem almost dance-like to anyone watching. Minori started to enjoy herself, keeping herself one footstep from disaster, bouncing around the deadly net and dodging attacks, before finding herself in position to grab the cloth and reveal her adversary. Tossing the cloth away, she landed, crouched, on a tentacle, the world seeming to stop for a moment as she examined her enemy. It was an amorphous blob, like a jellyfish with many prehensile tentacles, and the pearl – her goal – within it's mass. Time started again, as Minori felt a tingle of power in the tentacle beneath her feet, and pushed off just as the jellyfish-demon used it's electrical sting to try and trap her. Grabbing another tentacle, she flipped over it, and landed on the ground, her hand smoking slightly from dissipated electricity, her body naturally resistant due to her own fiendish nature. She lunged forward, stopping at the last moment to one hand, scything her legs across and slashing the demon's flesh open with the Ki claws she had learned to generate, in imitation of her Masters' lethal hands and feet. The demon reeled, but clearly wasn't done yet, as, flipping over the small body feet-first, Minori felt a tentacle come from nowhere and wrap around her chest, attempting to crush ribs, crackling with electricity, enough to overcome her body's natural resistance. Her back arcing, Minori screamed as her diaphragm contracted, forcing the air from her lungs as the electricity set off every muscle in her body. Blue lightning crackled around her for a full ten seconds before relenting. Minori hung for a moment, as though defeated, before slashing through the arm with her bare hands, dropping to a crouch, and springing away to recover. Unfortunately, it seemed that the demon could regenerate, the wound already closing. Minori would get no breathers in defeating this monster. Just the way she liked it. Grinning like a maniac, her serpentine fangs showing, Minori charged toward the demon, turning into a dervish of slashing claws, destroying tentacles slightly faster than they could regenerate, until she reached the main body. Tearing into it with her hands, she pushed one in, grabbing the pearl and twisting it free. The demon shrieked in agony, retreating and leaving Minori with the dripping pearl in hand. A little sorry that it was over so soon, Minori shrugged, saluted the whimpering jellyfish, and ran back the way she came.

When she reached the entrance, her Master was waiting for her, hands folded inside his wide sleeves, one red eye glowing balefully from under his cowl.

"I've found it, Master Cinder." She grinned at him, disallowing the small laugh of victory from her throat. The cowl just nodded, almost imperceptibly.

"You are hurt. Heal yourself." Was the only reply, and the hands unclasped, one reaching out to remove the pearl from her hand, metal claws brushing against calloused skin for a moment. When the hand retreated, a small ring lay in the pearl's place. Minori's skin crawled at the touch of the Ring of Regenerations' magic, but she put it on anyway, a sick feeling rising inside her. She bore that cross in silence, however, aware that her shadowy Master would be displeased if she showed discomfort. Together, they turned and left the training hall, the pressure of her efforts, coupled with the ring, finally starting to overcome her, sleep pressing at the back of her eyelids. Cinder set a brisk pace, however, and she followed. They came to the young martial artist's quarters, and Cinder held out one metallic claw, expectantly. Minori slipped the ring off and placed it in his steel fingers, before bowing to him and entering her small cell to rest. Soon, she had slipped into sleep-like Reverie, unaware to the world around her.

Cinder smiled to himself, though his mouth did not move. Salamanders do not express themselves in such ways. Tonight, he would give his disciple Minori her last test, and, unknown to the resting Tiefling, it had already begun. Stepping inside the cell as soon as she was asleep, he summoned his power without moving, flames leaping up around his shrouded form, and reached out to touch her with one metal limb. The flames moved from him to her, not burning her, but shrouding her form completely, before collapsing inwards to hungrily devour her mortal form. Minori Kusao's body was consumed completely as she rested in her cell, the only home she had ever known. And somewhere, in far-above Toril, in the town of Yulash, a housewife named Miranda screamed as her kitchen fire consumed her, leaving only the peacefully sleeping form of a crimson-eyed Tiefling to mark her passing.


End file.
